Prompt
Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a teammate. How did you handle it?
Practice this question
Try answering it yourself first. The answer guide is below.
After you practice: what this question tests and how to approach it
What this question tests
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Communication
- Empathy and compassion
How to approach this question
This question tests whether you can handle disagreement with a colleague directly and respectfully, and whether you can see the other person's side. Choose a real conflict where the outcome mattered, and describe the other person fairly, without making them the villain. Explain how you raised the issue, what you asked, and what you learned about their point of view. Show how the two of you reached a solution and what happened to the work afterward. Take responsibility for any part you played in the tension. Close with what you'd do the same way next time and what you'd change.
Answer guide
A strong answer to "tell me about a time you had a conflict with a teammate" describes a real disagreement, shows that you approached the other person directly and with curiosity, and ends with a resolution that served the shared goal. In a medical school interview, the way you describe your teammate matters as much as the outcome.
What the interviewer is assessing
Physicians work in teams every day, and disagreements in those teams affect patients. The interviewer wants to see whether you address conflict early, privately and respectfully, rather than avoiding it or escalating it. They're listening for empathy, which shows in whether you tried to understand the other person's reasons. They also want to know whether you can separate the person from the problem and keep the team's goal in view. In an MMI, a teamwork station may ask you to work through a conflict scenario. A panel interview usually asks for a real story.
How to structure your answer
- Describe the team, the goal and your role in a few sentences.
- Explain the conflict, and present your teammate's position fairly.
- Describe what you did, including how you started the conversation and what you asked.
- Say what you learned about their perspective that you hadn't seen before.
- Explain how you resolved it and what happened to the team's work.
- Reflect briefly on what you'd keep and what you'd change.
Pick a conflict about how work got done, such as deadlines, workload or standards. Conflicts about personal matters are harder to tell fairly in two minutes. When you practice "tell me about a time you had a conflict" for a medical school interview, time yourself, because the setup tends to grow and squeeze out the resolution.
Common mistakes
- Making your teammate the villain suggests you'd struggle to work with people you disagree with.
- Choosing a conflict you solved by going straight to a supervisor skips the part the interviewer wants to hear.
- Telling a story where you quietly did the other person's work avoids the conflict instead of resolving it.
- Claiming you've never had a conflict sounds either untrue or like you avoid hard conversations.
- Ending on who was right misses what the interviewer is listening for. They want to hear how the team moved forward.
Example answer
Here is an example answer from a fictional applicant who worked as a line cook at a busy restaurant while studying part-time.
I worked as a line cook for three years, and for most of one summer I was in conflict with another cook named Ray about closing duties.
Ray had worked there for ten years. When we closed together, he'd leave about forty minutes before me, and I'd finish cleaning his station along with mine. After a few weeks I was frustrated. I noticed I'd started being short with him during service, which made the shifts worse for everybody.
I asked Ray if we could talk after a shift. I told him what I'd noticed and asked how he saw it. He explained that he came in early to do the next morning's prep, which took about an hour. The previous closing cook had agreed to cover his station in exchange. Nobody had told me about that arrangement, and he'd assumed I knew.
Once I understood that, the split was fair, and I told him so. I also apologized for how I'd been acting during service. We wrote the arrangement down for the manager, so the next new cook wouldn't run into the same problem.
I took one lesson from it. I ask before I decide what someone's behavior means. I'd spent weeks building a story about Ray that wasn't true.
More on teamwork and conflict
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